Protegee
by Serenity Of The Sound
Summary: Before Doctor Hannibal Lecter lost his license, he had a rather interesting patient. This is her story.


She was the only dark thing in her white, padded cell.  
The straight jacket strained as his new patient tried to free her arms, her eyes twin pools of green fire behind her curtain of long, silky black hair that hid them partially from his view.  
The orderly let him in with a large ring of keys, as as he walked in, she grew still.  
Perfectly still, like a statue. Her face was still tilted down, her hair hiding her impossibly green eyes. As the door was shut and locked behind him, he approached her.  
"So they said you were insane."  
It was a different direction that he usually used on his patients, but she was different. The file that he had read was extensive. She was unlike any of his old patients. In fact, her case was not one that he would normally even consider taking on.  
Yes, this one was different.  
And unlike the others, there was a reaction.  
Her head tilted upwards, and there were those eyes, a shade of green that could never be truly described. They were dark, but filled with something he could only think of as light. Perhaps sparks, or the blue edge of the first flame of a fire.  
A small reaction, but one none the less.  
"Schizophrenia, manic depressive disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder. Shall i go on, Annalise? The list is quite extensive."  
He had expected silence, or perhaps tears. After all, she was just a child of seventeen, the borderline on fully becoming a young woman. She was fragile, and after all the sessions with old psychiatrists, brutal treatments, and confinement, he had expected some sort of emotion. Sadness, hysteria, perhaps even anger.  
"That's not my name!"  
Her voice was a low, deadly hiss full of un repressed malice and fury that would have made him shiver if he had not experienced it once or twice before. Those perfect lips had parted, and instead of shattering sobs or swear words he had expected, there, in the core of her, was denial.  
"Isn't it?" he replied coolly, flicking through her file that he had brought with him. "Annalise Crystale Martin, Born in Harlesdale. Is that not you?"  
Her head shook slowly, hair swishing softly like silk.  
"No."  
He waited for her to continue, for he knew the answer was empty.  
"I've never been Annalise. Never."  
So she had an identity complex. It was not uncommon, but when approached, interesting. One with an identity complex saw the world a different way, lived a different way, thought a different way.  
Usually a violent way.  
Her history was again, interesting. At times she was the model daughter of her wealthy family: Quiet, shy, studious, and well bred and behaved. And then, she would snap. One moment she could be chatting softly with one of the maids, or perhaps a student at school. And the next, she flew into rages, attacking, screaming, cursing. She had night terrors that made her scream so long, she would become horse.  
And at times, she would become someone else.  
The tone of her voice, the way she walked, dressed, even the foods she ate would change. Her temper would rise, or drop. And at times, she would cause intentional harm to herself. At others, she would be completely silent. When called by name, she would not answer, and claim that was not her name. That her family was not her family.  
"Then who are you?"  
She looked directly into his eyes. Hers seemed to be made of fire.  
No, they weren't mad. Far from mad. They were angry, and they were alive. He could fall into these eyes, loose himself in them.  
And Doctor Hannibal Lecter had never lost himself before.  
"Serenity."  
A raspy, dry, quiet whisper, and all the tension in her body was erased. She slumped against the corner she leaned against, her breath coming arms, which were restricted around her by the straight jacket, sagged.  
"Why don't we take that off, dear?"  
File set aside, he crossed the distance between them. She watched him with tentative, unbelieving eyes as he undid the buckles and ties on her straight jacket, blinking curiously.  
He eased the restraint off her, and he smiled.  
It was his I-Know-You smile. His I-See-You smile. It was was the smile that said he knew what she was thinking.  
He was already in her head.  
Her arms were thin and slender, and he watched as she sat calmly, looking into his eyes. She folded her hands in her lap, and sighed. Her posture was different this time; more subdued, more behaved.  
"Ahh." He thought to himself. "Another personality."  
And it was. It seemed she was trying to make herself smaller, less noticeable. She wrung her hands, and her eyes were less intense this time, and wide, like a child's.  
"I hurt someone again, didn't i?"  
It was a blunt question asked in the voice of a little girl.  
"I did. I hurt my mother again. That's why they put me in here, didn't they?"  
He listened, but didn't say a word back. He was curious now, curious as to the way she would deal with this realization. He was still kneeling before her, watching her every movement.  
Her hands trembled.  
"Why won't you tell me?" She whimpered, her eyes glassy with tears. "Did i kill her? DID I KILL HER?"  
The last part of her question rose into a scream, and her head snapped down. A shudder went through her body, and she leaned against her wall again, crying softly. The scars on her bare arms shimmered in the dim light of her cell, criss crossing marks that she had made with her own hands. they were the kind of scars that might fade with time, but two many of them were too deep to fully disappear.  
Permanent reminders.  
"No, Serenity. Your mother is very much alive, and vexed with you, i believe."  
Her shoulders shook, and her nails bit into the padded ground. She was laughing now, but softly so, that ink black hair of her's hiding her expression. But Doctor Lecter didn't need to see her expression.  
No...  
This was enough.  
"Tell me, Does your other side often do this?" He asked her carefully, when she grew quiet once more. "Perhaps your mother said something to anger it. Do you remember?"  
A long moment passed.  
She laughed. Again.  
She looked up, the fire in her eyes smoldering. Never had he seen such eyes. No, these were not tainted with the madness of murder, of incoherent thoughts, or of perversion.  
No, her eyes were like a caged tiger's. They were beautiful, but deadly.  
Poison green, the shade might have been, if a name could describe it.  
"My mother wanted me to go back to Doctor Butler, you see." She explained, with a smile. "She doesn't like when Doctor Butler touches me. She doesn't like him and neither do i. He's a liar, and he makes me take drugs that shut me up and make me so dizzy i can't even talk."  
Ah. So he sodomized her, and her other 'personality' hadn't liked it at all. It made sense, in a way. Her rages were meant to protect her, possibly from anything that her mind might even perceive as a threat.  
"So when mother tried to send me back, She didn't like tried to get us away, but my mother wouldn't stop. So she hit mother, and i was hysterical. I don't want to go back."  
She tilted her head a bit, like a dog or cat might do when confronted with something it doesn't understand.  
"You won't send me back, will you, Doctor?"  
He smiled.  
It was a predator's smile.  
"And how do you know i am a Doctor?"  
This time it was her time to smile.  
"The way you calculate things. Oh, they may call me crazy, but i'm nowhere NEAR as stupid as they told you i was. I see things."  
"You see things? Give me an example."  
Another tilt of the head, and an answer he didn't expect.  
"Oh, i know you're a psychiatrist. Just the way you look at me tells both me and Her that you want something. What is it that you want, Doctor?"  
But before he could even comprehend what she had asked, The door behind him opened,and the orderly came in.  
"Lights out, Doctor Lecter. I'm afraid you'll have to come back tomorrow."  
Serenity smiled up at him.  
"We'll be waiting for you, Doctor."  
And he knew that she would be more then just a patient.  
She would be his student.  
His protegee.


End file.
